In fact, his marquee issue puts him at odds with Democratic elites and deep-pocketed teachers' unions. Williams, you see, is an unabashed supporter of charter schools and school vouchers. This principled stand turns out to be incredibly popular with his constituents and helpful in one other important way: He raised more than twice as much money as any other contender last quarter, thanks largely to school-choice advocates and middle-class blacks who see him as the future.

First of all, I'm be curious to know how Santorum is allowed to flatly assert that Williams' donors are "middle-class blacks" -- since the last time I checked people don't identify either their race or how much money they earn on campaign disclosure forms. Unless Santorum -- who has a lot of free time on his hands these days -- drove up from Virginia (stopping at Arby's along the way) and knocked on the doors of the listed contributors, he is, in the memorable locution of Sarah Palin, making things up.

Second of all, it is a known fact that almost all of the money raised by Anthony Hardy Williams DID come from "school choice advocates" -- a grand total of three of them, to be exact. As was widely reported last week, but not mentioned in Santorum's column, almost all of the money that Williams raised this year has come through three individuals -- not middle class people, but multimillionaire derivatives traders -- who support school choice and have used PACs to funnel $1.5 million to his campaign. With this intellectually dishonest error of omission, Santorum is trying to give the bogus impression that Williams has a broad base of financial support, when it's really just three rich guys.

Four years in exile have not changed Santorum one bit.

For all his whining about big government, Santorum also remains eager to tear down this wall -- between church and state. This weekend in New Orleans, Santorum said: ""I'm not talking about just our founding documents. I'm talking about the founding documents upon which our founding documents were based. We are a people of western civilization founded upon the Bible."